Almost as soon as I got to Urgent Care, they escalated me to the Emergency Room at the main hospital. Something I expected due to the discoloration. Honestly, at this point I expected to lose the toe. The podiatrist came in and told me I was going to be scheduled for surgery and they were going to transfer me upstairs to a room. And that surgery was scheduled for tomorrow morning, Friday. Then she dropped the bomb on me. Flesh Eating Bacteria. Ladies and gentlemen, we have just lost cabin pressure... What... The... Fuck...
What?! How?! Huh?? Spent most of the rest of the day trying to wrap my brain around that and the fact that I'm going to go into surgery. Mind you, I've never been under before and I don't respond well to local anesthetics. They often have zero effect on me. Yes, that's right. The reason I hate going to the dentist is because no matter how much Novocaine they shoot me up with, I can still feel the pain. Oh, no, don't be silly, you're only feeling the pressure. Fuck you, doctor, that shit is PAIN. I know the difference. As a teenage, I would constantly get ingrown toenails and they would often need an outpatient procedure done at the podiatrist's office. And every single time, I would feel pain, no matter how many injections of anesthetics they gave me. Once, the podiatrist had to cut the bone in my big toe to prevent the toenail from growing further, thus preventing ingrown toenails in the future. I took 8, EIGHT, shots of local anesthetic at and around my toe. And I felt every single cut he made into skin and bone that morning. I was writhing in pain so much, I tweaked my back. So naturally, I asked going into surgery for my amputation to please knock me the fuck out. I do not want to be awake for this.
The anesthesiologist did a great job, I have to say. In the pre-op room, she told me she was going to give me something and I should be out until after the surgery. When the time came, she gave me what's it was and I vaguely remember being wheeled into the operating room and being asked to move from the gurney to the bed. The next thing I recall is waking up in the recovery room about 2 1/2 hours later. Still March 16th.
The doctor came by a little while later to tell me how the surgery went. That she had to cut the toe and a couple other infected bones. The infection, however, was still present in the adjacent toes so they were going to keep a close eye on me and how it progressed. I might have to go back in for another surgery depending on how it went. She goes on to tell me the infection was so aggressive that if I had waited another day, I would have lost my leg.
In the ensuing follow-up appointments, she kept dropping more bombshells on how dire the situation truly was. I had developed gas gangrene, which is why surgery was moved up a day. She felt I didn't have the time to wait overnight for surgery. From the time she saw me in the ER until the time of the surgery, a span of 7-8 hours, the infection had progressed so rapidly she thought she might have to amputate the entire front of my foot. All the toes and ball, leaving me with just a stump. She goes on to tell me that recovery could take up to a year. I shattered that timeline thanks to the wound vac and the home health nurses that took care of that.
I am beyond relieved and eternally grateful to my podiatrist and the entire medical team that managed to save my foot and kept the infection under control that here I am, just 4 months later and well into my recovery. I told myself that I would be back by October. I'm beating my own projection by a few months.
I'm no longer requiring any bandages, am wearing shoes again and relying on my cane less and less.
On top of that, the massive change in lifestyle and eating habits brought about by this has created a major benefit as a side effect. I've lost so much weight, I'm down to what I weighed my senior year in high school. Going to work on conditioning as the strength in my foot returns.
2023 has been a hell of a year so far. And we've barely passed the hallway point
